


Mistletoe

by shauds



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Gen, Gift Fic, STAY Server Winter Exchange, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:26:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28450128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shauds/pseuds/shauds
Summary: Jason and Stephanie meet up in secret for a date, both of them having thoughts about the nature of their relationship.
Relationships: Stephanie Brown/Jason Todd, jaysteph
Comments: 3
Kudos: 34





	Mistletoe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [skeletoninthecloset](https://archiveofourown.org/users/skeletoninthecloset/gifts).



> For Whit on the JaySteph discord server. I wanted to get all four of your prompts into this fic, but the second chapter with the other two prompts is taking forever, hope this is okay for now.

Christmas lights didn't suit Gotham. They were too bright, too colorful, yet still struggled to provide even the barest circle of light to the darkness that did suit the city. It reminded Jason more of the kinds of horror movies Bruce shouldn't have let him watch when he was fifteen that the merriment it was supposed to ignite. Maybe it was just that anything else resembling the 'cheery' lights that dared to show up in Gotham meant trouble, currently horror movie-esque trouble if the comm chatter was anything to go off of.

Trouble that Jason, for better or worse, was not going to be showing up to help deal with, unavailable meant unavailable. Contrary to what the people chattering on those comms though, Jason had better things to be doing tonight.

From the darkness between the colorful lights, a figure detached itself, silent as the snow swirling in a gentle dance all around them, it glided towards him, a weapon at the ready. Jason made no move to show he'd noticed it, even with the polite scraping of a boot against rough concrete it made - none of them were very good with these kinds of surprises after all - before it reached him, a weapon at the ready.

"Hands up, there's nowhere left to run." Her voice was an attempt at deep that sounded more like a gremlin than anything as she swept out her arm, leveling the short red and white stick between his eyes. "Come quietly Hood."

"Batgirl!" Jason gasped, swiveling his head about in search of an escape, but there was none to be found. "No! My dastardly plans!" He threw up his hands and backed into the wall of the secluded waffle house parking lot she'd found him in. "How could this have happened to me?"

Stephanie snorted but quickly tried to school her visible features, the shaking of the arm holding up the candy cane more apparent than that of her shoulders. "Because you were sloppy, there were too many clues for a master clue spoiler such as myself to miss."

Yeah, okay, he might have gone a little overboard on the covert messages this time, but it **had** been a busy week and it was entirely possible that she might have missed some of them if he hadn't.

"Curses." He spat, turning his head, but not taking his eyes off of her.

"Hey, no curses this close to Christmas," she chided, sliding the candy cane into his mouth, "you don't think we had enough of those already?"

"Never enough curses." Jason disagreed, shaking his head as he took hold of, then crunched down on the candy cane, hardly even tasting the sweetness, because damn him if she didn't look like a dream tonight. Her fuzzy purposefully horrendous home made sweater charming as it's maker, golden hair whipped up into a halo about her flushed face by the wind, eyes glimmering in her amusement. Jason didn't even think about it before removing candy stick from his mouth suddenly needing to occupy the space with something else.

Stephanie's squeak when he pulled her in starting in shock and ended in glee, his arms wrapped around her, their many winter layers too insulated for him to have physically felt her warm, but it was their all the same. Her lips, in contrast were cool when they met his, but quickly warmed even as their icy noses brushed together and the freezing felt of her gloves ran along the back on his neck, sending electric shivers down his spine as he held tightly on to her.

It didn't last long, but even that half a minute could have made this week of waiting worth it. Pulling apart still left him breathless, and a look at down at her flushed face brought a grin to his.

"How else am I supposed to make a living."

"Huh?" Steph breathed, her eyes ever so slightly glazed as she picked up the thread of the conversation they'd been having before the abrupt make out session. She blinked and with a little shake of her head, she was back in the present. "By stealing your Dads credit card and pretending you don't know what he's talking about until he pretends he doesn't know what he's talking about too?" She suggested with a shrug. "It works for your sister."

"If I'm stealing from him, it aint gonna be money." Jason huffed, there were a couple things he would gladly steal from Bruce, a couple he **had** with glee - as a pair of batmobiles that had needed fishing from Finger River and the Gotham bay could attest to - but - as Cass's many consecutively successful pilferings involving Bruce's many wallets could attest to - Bruce was all too happy to hand out money. Jason wasn't ever going to need that from anyone again. "Bruce loves that car too much."

I guess a date in the car would be pushing it a little there, huh?" She nudged him with her elbow, a theatrical pout wobbling on her lips..

"Oh yeah." Jason agreed, ignoring the little pang it brought to his chest at the little reminder that what they had was the most secret part of both of their already very secretive lives. He told himself it was fine, there wasn't any real reason that anyone other than the two of them needed to know, he told Steph, "Wanna go inside before we freeze to our second deaths out here?"

" **Please**." She hooked his arm in his, pressing her body close to his and Jason's brain short circuited as it often did around her, even if only for a moment, before they moved for the warmth of the most secluded diner in Gotham. Not the best, **one day** he swore to himself he'd take her to the best, but for now, it was enough that they could be close.

*******

Steph wasn't exactly sure what it was she'd agreed to have her waffles covered in. The green and red had looked real pretty coming in, and it tasted **okay** , even now that the colors had smushed together into whatever that color was. The fries, chicken and copious amounts of cheese on Jason's looked infinitely more appetizing, extra syrup and all.

"No!" Jason blocked her fork from claiming a morsel, "You wanted to be festive, you eat the monstrosity you ordered."

Steph groaned dropped her face to the table. Monstrosity. As if Jason wasn't the king of eating the weirdest shit he could get his hands on, figured the one time she tried to be as spontaneous with her own food it had backfired. "You're the monstrosity." Steph whined and used her fork to drag her own plate back over to her face, she scooped up a bite under the unyielding watch of her boyfriend… her top secret, had to sneak around to make out with boyfriend. Sitting up straight, Steph swallowed then cleared her throat.

"Speaking of festive, what you wearing to Bruce's fancy ass costume gala?" Steph was convinced it was only a costume party because Bruce liked that he could sneak in all the friends he wouldn't admit were friends that he didn't have a plausible reason to know outside of Batman. "We killed it - pun totally intended there - as the Halloween zombies, but that's kinda off theme for th is season, so we gotta get creative." There were so many scary Santa variations to play with.

"I'm not going to Bruce's weird fucking costume party." Jason scoffed as if the very idea was beneath him, he took pity on Steph and nudged a wedge of his waffle at her.

"Aw, c'mon, why not?" Steph asked as she jabbed her fork through the offered food and dragged it into her plate, "It'll be fun." She had **ideas** for that, stuffy rich people crowding the place and all. "We can match inappropriate costumes and dance, and there'll be mistletoe, so maybe," Steph splayed out her hands between them, "hear me out, just **maybe** we wind up under the mistletoe together, and well, then we're gonna have to share a super passionate kiss and what are they gonna say?" She speared a piece of waffle and jabbed her fork at their hypothetical crowd, "It's mistletoe **and** we're in Gotham, **crazy** shit happens around plants in Gotham."

"Someone's gotta handle the city." Jason snorted and threw an arm around Steph's shoulders, pulling her in close, "Why bother with people saying anything when I could just kiss you right here, no mistletoe needed." His callused fingers brushed under her chin, angling her head so it was level with his.

"It's not the same." Steph groaned, but melted into his warmth, her back pressed up against his chest as their lips found each other again. It was a short kiss, soft and chaste, but it still, as always left Steph feeling for a moment as if she'd just endured the least painful lightning strike in the history of the universe.

"You're real affectionate today." She mused when it was over, taking advantage of their position to burrow her face into the crook of his neck.

"Missed you." He mumbled.

"Me too." Steph returned, because yeah, she could definitely relate. They hadn't been able to spend time together like this in a while. Sure they'd hung out, but that hanging out had been within sight of his family, and so it had been the teasing and the banter, but not **this**. Curse the end of year crime spike in this cursed monstrosity of a city, Steph thought, her eyes landing on the scraps that remained of the waffle that had resembled the sentiment all to much. "S'why I figured we could slip in some we time at the party." And fine, maybe she sometimes almost wished they'd slip up somewhere so we time could happen regardless of they were around. Almost. They had made the decision to keep what they had private for a reason after all, it as just sometimes...

"You want me to go that bad?" Jason asked, his tone pensive, a gentle a hand running along her upper arm keeping her close.

If she were to say that she did, Steph knew he would have shown up, whether or not he really wanted to, and pressing for him to tell her why he didn't want to of would amount to the same thing so, "Not **that** bad." She lied, and made a grab for his waffle speared fork. "We can hang out after and I'll let you know what you missed."

Jason scoffed, but it was the rare bright, genuine grin that accompanied it and Steph felt her chest flutter, he let her relieve him of his waffle. "Sure, and make sure to tally up all the ass I kicked while you were partying with the old people."

"Cass is gonna be there too y'know, I predict much ass will be kicked."

"Psh," Jason shook his head, "When will Bruce learn." He speared a bite of her own monstrous mess of a meal, and like the weirdo he was, he actually liked the thing enough to order another himself.

Steph could only roll her eyes and enjoy his abandoned syrupy chicken while she wondered at how that could make her want to kiss him so, so much. Sometimes, she just wished they could be this way all the time, no matter who was watching.


End file.
